


Eyes closed

by Marial1_K



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, How Do I Tag, I Tried, I'm Bad At Tagging, Not A Fix-It, POV Gendry, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 02:30:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18907684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marial1_K/pseuds/Marial1_K
Summary: Gendry reflects on his feelings for Arya





	Eyes closed

**Author's Note:**

> This is not exactly a fix it fic but I tried to leave it as open as I could. I feel robbed of the one thing I wanted in the 6th episode and I think everyone would agree with me..
> 
> title and some lyrics from Eyes closed by Halsey

"Now if I keep my eyes closed she looks just like you"  
He laid on his bed in the Lord's chambers in Storm's End facing the ceiling, the warmth of the body next to him nearly suffocating. He tried to keep his eyes closed, to remember the way she looked when they laid together, on a grain shack of all places, right before the battle against the dead. He tried to keep his eyes closed, to remember the way she felt and the way she tasted, of leather and snow and a hint of lavender always lingering there. But most of all, he tried to keep his eyes closed to remember her. Her hair neatly pulled back in a bun, her stormy grey eyes piercing through his soul, almost as if she could see right through him, the scars littering her once unblemished skin. He tried to remember her. 

He looked to his right where the girl slept, trying to find something in her that reminded him of the woman that saved humanity, the only woman he ever and will ever love. But he couldn't find anything. Her brown hair was longer than hers, her eyes weren't as grey, or as passionate as hers and the only scars she had were those from accidents from knitting. Not from being stabbed countless of times, not from knocking her head on the wall while running from the dead, not from the icy grip the Night King had on her throat a minute before she killed him. No, she wasn't her. She wasn't fierce, powerfull, fearless. She wasn't the girl who wouldn't take shit from anyone, not even him. She wasn't the girl who had pushed him down when he called her a lady, nor the girl who came to him asking for new weapons, or the girl who could throw knives and shoot arrows at the target better than any man. No, she wasn't her, no one could ever be. But, if he closed his eyes, he could pretend that the girl sleeping next to him was the one he loved, even for a little while.

"But she never stayed, they never do"

Now he could understand where his father came from. The girls he slept with never stayed long, only the night. He didn't want them to, he couldn't even if he wanted to. The empty place next to him in the too large bed would always belong to her, wherever she was. He felt as if disrespecting her when other women slept on what he thought to be hers. She wasn't there, she wasn't with him. She didn't sleep next to him, he couldn't take her in his arms at night and he couldn't wake up with her looking up at him in the morning. There was only one thing he could do and that was ignore the ache in his chest when he woke up the morning after to not see her, but a different woman sleeping next to him. They would always leave after they woke up. He always treated them kindly and with respect but he couldn't feel about them the way he felt about her or with her. He wondered if his father treated them the same way, but his best guess was no. He may have his father's blood and name but he wasn't anything like him. 

"Now if I keep my eyes closed she feels just like you"

Every time he slept with a woman, he kept his eyes closed. He kept them closed so he could imagine her with him instead. He kept them closed so he could feel as if she were here, pushing him down on a grain shack and demanding he takes his own pants off. He kept them closed so he could see her standing there, looking down at him, passion and fear and love and lust swirling in her eyes, and see her hands fumbling around to take her tunic off and her bare in front of him. He kept them closed so he could remember her scars and how angry he was that she had to go through so much pain after they were separated. He kept them closed so he could remember how she looked at him and how she kissed him during what could be the last moments of their lives. He kept them closed so he could remember how her skin felt under his callused hands, how she shivered when he traced the scars first with his fingers and then with his lips. And he kept them closed so he could remember the way she felt around him, hot and tight and so damn beautiful. He kept them closed so he could pretend that she was the one he was burying himself into late at night when no one in the castle was awake. Her name must have slipped past his lips once or twice but if the girls had heard him, they never commented on it. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but it was almost as if he couldn't stop it from happening, however much he tried to.

"But you've been replaced, I'm face to face with someone new"

No. He never tried to replace her and he knew he never would, not now and not in the future. She was the one that owned his heart, just as Lyanna Stark owned his father's. He wouldn't go to war for her, he wouldn't kill the Prince for her because he knew that she would never want to be a lady. She wanted to be free, to travel, to explore and experience new things. Many people had tried to make him at least think about marriage, because as the last Baratheon alive, it was his duty to have an heir to take over the Stormlands after his passing. Ser Davos and his wife, the Lords of the Stormlands and even the Queen in the North.  
Sansa had sent a raven telling him about potential marriage proposals and about Lords wanting their daughters to become his ladies. He responded with a simple sentence and she never asked him again.

I love your sister

Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End

If she never came back or if she did but didn't want anything to do with him, he would take an orphan under his wing and raise them to be the next Lady or Lord of Storm's End. But he would never marry someone out of duty. He wouldn't make the same mistake his father did. He loved her and no one in the seven kingdoms could ever make him feel otherwise, not even she herself.

"Would've gave it all for you, cared for you. So tell me where I went wrong"

For a blind moment, after Daenerys gave him the title, he felt as if everything was right in the world. He felt finally worthy of her. She was a princess after all, even if she didn't want to be. He was drunk and a fool in love and he thought that now, after all this time, he had a chance of being with her. The dornish wine they had been drinking had hit him way too hard and he was so lost by it he got down on one knee in front of her. Her out of all people. He knew his words were wrong the minute they came out of his mouth. But they were true. He loved her and she was beautiful and none of it would matter if she weren't with him.  But then he got down on one knee and proposed. 

Be my wife. Be the Lady of Storm's End.

So stupid, so fucking stupid. He would've given the titles, the lands, everything away if she had asked him to. 

He always cared. He cared from the moment he threatened Hot Pie to hit him until he sang, the way the all too familiar steel did. He cared when she told him who she really was, he cared when they escaped from Harrenhall, he cared when she tried to kill the Hound. He cared when he decided to join the Brotherhood, he always did. 

And he knew where he went wrong, asking her to be his lady. He would take it back in a heartbeat if he could. 

She will always be the lady of his heart, the one he craves and longs for. 

She is out there, discovering new cities and new people and he loves her for it. He doesn't know if she'll ever come back, but if she does there will always be a place for her, right beside him in his bed, where a different girl sleeps at the moment. But there was a place for her beside him as a ruler too, since none of it would matter if she weren't with him.

He kept his eyes closed


End file.
